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He stared, white with fear. ‘What bullshit …’ he whispered.
A policeman drove his car to Marshall Square. He went with the other two. His ears felt blocked, his mind was racing. The cars parked in the yard. One man stayed behind: he went with the other two.
They entered the same back door he had used last time he was here. The same elevator, with only one button. Nobody spoke. The top floor. The long corridor, neon lights. The security gate. A row of doors. Into an office, where they took his passport, and then his fingerprints.
‘Why are you taking my fingerprints?’ He tried to control his shaking hands.
‘Routine.’
‘But I’m not a fucking criminal!’
The man said nothing. He gripped Mahoney’s fingers and rolled the tips one by one onto the pad. The other detective took the form and walked out of the room. ‘Kom.’
They walked back along the corridor. Into the lair of Colonel Krombrink, who sat behind his desk.
‘Good afternoon.’
At the window lolled the same detective as last time.
‘Colonel, am I under arrest?’
‘Not yet.’
Not yet? ‘Then why am I here? And why was I fingerprinted?’
Krombrink said quietly: ‘Sit down.’
Oh Jesus, he hated the bastards! And he was scared of them. ‘If I’m to answer questions I’m entitled to a lawyer. In which case he will answer them for me!’
‘Mr Mahoney, you know as well as I do that you can be detained for ninety days to answer questions – without access to a lawyer. What have you got to hide, that you Want a lawyer?’
‘Nothing!’ And he hated the bastards so much it felt like the truth.
The colonel smiled. ‘Nothing we don’t know already? So sit down, please.’
‘Oh Jesus …’
The colonel clasped his hands. ‘I’m not going to beat about the bush, Mr Mahoney. You have broken the law. And broken God’s law: the Immorality Act …’
Mahoney closed his eyes, but in relief. If that’s all they had on him … But he had to deny it. The colonel went on: ‘We know all about you and that Indian, Patti Gandhi. We can give you dates, places, times. And you’ve just come back from another dirty night in Swaziland. Don’t waste our time denying it.’
‘I do deny it …’
Krombrink shook his head in sadness. ‘And you a law student.’ He looked at him. ‘You’re going to go to jail, Mr Mahoney. And when you come out you’ll never be allowed to practise law; not with a criminal record like that, man.’
The Immorality Act … So they weren’t going to try to use him as an informer? He said: ‘This is crazy.’
The colonel said: ‘What we find crazy is that a man from a good family like you, with your education, should want to consort with a non-European!’ He looked at him with disgust; then his eyes narrowed. ‘And a communist. A terrorist.’ Mahoney felt himself go ashen. Krombrink let it hang. ‘Contravening the Immorality Act is only one of the charges, Mr Mahoney.’
Mahoney desperately tried to think straight. ‘She’s not a communist! Or a terrorist! What preposterous charges do you think you’ve got against me?’
The colonel smiled. So did the detective at the window: he muttered something under his breath. The colonel said quietly: ‘Preposterous? That’s a big word.’ He paused. ‘Contravening the Suppression of Communism Act?’
‘But I’m a fucking capitalist! And so is Patti Gandhi!’
The colonel smiled. ‘And how about the Terrorism Act?’
Mahoney’s ears were ringing. Sick in his guts, with fear, with anger. ‘Neither of us is a terrorist!’
Colonel Krombrink smiled widely. ‘“Us”? You make it sound like you’re a couple. But the Immorality Act’s the least of your worries, hey? Because the Terrorism Act isn’t jail. It’s the gallows in Pretoria.’
Mahoney’s ears were ringing, his heart pounding. ‘For doing what?’
Colonel Krombrink smiled. ‘The men we arrested at Lilliesleaf Farm all face the gallows.’
Mahoney felt the vomit turn in his guts. ‘I’d never been to Lilliesleaf Farm before last Wednesday.’
The colonel sighed. ‘Another charge: attempted extortion.’ He looked at Mahoney grimly.
Mahoney stared at him, absolutely astonished. ‘Extortion?’
‘Blackmail?’ The colonel opened a drawer. He pulled out a folder. He pulled out a photograph and flicked it across to him.
Mahoney stared. It was the photograph of Patti copulating with Sergeant van Rensburg. He could see the stacked pages of his long story. Her secret weapon exposed …
‘That’s a legitimate journalist’s story!’
The colonel tossed across another photograph: Major Kotze with Patti. Krombrink looked at Mahoney with disgust. ‘Legitimate? How can any newspaper – even Drum – publish pictures like that?’
‘But they would publish the story! The pictures are just evidence to prove veracity …’
The colonel held his eye. ‘Then why didn’t you publish it?’
‘Because that was Miss Gandhi’s decision. It’s her story. Told to me in confidence. She would decide whether to publish!’
‘And when was Miss Gandhi going to publish her story?’
Mahoney closed his eyes in fury. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? Agh, come, Mr Mahoney, you expect us to believe that?’ He smiled. ‘When she wanted – or needed – to blackmail the police, perhaps?’
Mahoney tried to sigh theatrically. ‘I’m just a journalist, and I agreed to write it for her. Miss Gandhi is not a writer – it is an art form, you know.’
‘Oh, I know …’ the colonel said earnestly. The detective smirked. ‘And what did Miss Gandhi give you in exchange for your art form?’
The Immorality Act was the least of his worries. He was about to say ‘Nothing’ then brilliance struck him. ‘A case of brandy.’
‘Brandy?’ The colonel leered. ‘And what else?’
‘Nothing.’ He added shakily: ‘It is possible to be just friends with a woman, you know. And friendship with a non-European isn’t yet an offence, is it? They haven’t passed the Suppression of Friendship Act yet, have they?’
The colonel smiled. ‘And it was in the name of friendship that you’ve been going out of the country with her?’ He reached for the file, ran his eye down it studiously. ‘Swaziland, Botswana, Mozambique. I can give you dates …’
Outside the country? If that’s all they had against him he could laugh in their faces because there was no Immorality Act outside the country! ‘So what? We’re friends.’
The colonel smiled. ‘And what did you two friends talk about?’
Mahoney forced a shrug. ‘Oh, you know, this and that. Art. Poetry. Literature –’
‘Politics?’
He shrugged. ‘Not really, politics is so … predictable, in this country. So black or white – if you’ll pardon the pun.’
The detective who had taken the fingerprints entered. He placed a sheet of paper in front of Krombrink then withdrew. Krombrink read it expressionlessly. Then he sat back. ‘I like a man who sees the funny side of trouble.’ He slapped the file. ‘And where did you write this story?’
Mahoney’s pulse tripped again. ‘At Drum.’
‘At Drum, hey?’ The colonel flicked his thumb over the pages. ‘A long story. Even you can’t write such a long story in one go, man.’
‘Yes, all of it.’
‘Over how many sessions?’
‘Three or four.’ He shrugged.
‘And what make of typewriter have you got at Drum, hey?’
Oh God, typefaces. ‘A Remington.’
‘Yes,’ the colonel nodded. ‘Not an Olivetti. And this story, Mr Mahoney, was typed with an Olivetti.’
Mahoney fumbled. ‘I might have used somebody else’s typewriter at Drum – I can’t remember.’
‘Yes, you did use somebody else’s, Mr Mahoney. But not at Drum, hey? In fact,’ he smiled, ‘you used the Olivetti we found at Lilliesleaf Farm. In the cottage.’
It was another blow in the guts. He heard his ears ring. ‘That’s impossible.’
The colonel sighed. ‘Experts have compared the typeface of the Olivetti with your so-called story. And they match one hundred per cent.’ He raised his eyebrows pleasantly. ‘And if that’s not enough evidence – which it is – fingerprints were found all over the machine, hey. And those fingerprints – ’ he held up the note the detective had brought in – ‘match yours.’
Mahoney stared, heart pounding. Before he could say anything Colonel Krombrink continued: ‘So you were at Lilliesleaf Farm, Mr Mahoney. Where you wrote the whole –’ he flicked the typescript – ‘long story, over three or four long visits.’ The detective at the window grinned, fixing Mahoney with a cheerful glare. Colonel Krombrink went on: ‘An’ before you come up with some cock an’ bull story, let me advise you that your fingerprints were found on many of these, which we seized in the cottage.’ He waved his hand like a showman and the detective held up a beer bottle triumphantly.
Mahoney’s mind stuttered. And all he could think was – oh God, what about Patti’s fingerprints? He looked desperately at Colonel Krombrink.
‘Got, man, Mr Mahoney, you’re in big trouble, hey? Exactly the same as the guys we arrested red-handed at the farm, hey. Treason …’ He let that hang, then asked earnestly: ‘You know the penalty for treason?’
Mahoney was ashen, dread-filled. ‘You know bloody well I haven’t committed treason!’
The colonel sighed. ‘What I know is that you frequented the underground headquarters of the banned ANC and Communist Party, where the most-wanted terrorists in this country were arrested in possession of thousands of documents planning armed revolution to set up a black communist government supported by Moscow – and caught with a supply of weapons and explosives, hey. And I know that you wrote this –’ he flicked the file – ‘disgusting story for them with the intention of blackmailing the police – and you wrote it on their typewriter in their headquarters, drinking their beer, and that you left the story and pornographic pictures in their possession – we found it buried in a box. An’ I know that this Gandhi woman is a member of the ANC, an’ that she’s your girlfriend, an’ that you went on numerous trips with her to kaffir countries which are known ANC bases where these weapons and explosives come from – an’ you and Miss Gandhi had every opportunity to bring in those explosives and weapons.’
‘Bullshit! You know it is!’
‘And you’re a known troublemaker, always writing –’ he waved his hand in distaste – ‘crap about apartheid.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Treason, Mr Mahoney. And that’s not just the Immorality Act, hey – that’s the gallows, man.’
Mahoney scrambled to his feet and smashed his hand on the desk. ‘You know I had nothing to do with explosives and treason!’
The colonel smiled. ‘You’ll have to convince the judge, not me, Mr Mahoney. And,’ he added, ‘so will Miss Gandhi.’
‘She had nothing to do with that farm!’ Mahoney roared.
The colonel said softly: ‘Sit down, Mr Mahoney. You make the place look untidy.’
Mahoney glared, aghast, shaking. He rasped: ‘I refuse to answer any more ridiculous questions!’
The colonel sat back. ‘Ninety days, Mr Mahoney? We can detain you ninety days for questioning. An’ if we’re not satisfied you’re telling the truth we can detain you another ninety days. An’ so on, indefinitely. Now, be a sensible chap and sit down, hey.’
Mahoney stared, heart pounding. And, oh God, he was terrified. Ninety days and ninety days and ninety days… He slowly sank back into his chair.
The colonel nodded encouragingly. Then hunched forward, hands clasped. ‘Mr Mahoney, where was Miss Gandhi when you were working on the story on Lilliesleaf Farm?’
Mahoney closed his eyes, his mind frantically racing. They’d said nothing about her fingerprints… ‘I don’t know. She wasn’t present.’
‘So you just got in your car and drove out to the farm to write the story because it was your other office, hey? That proves you were one of those terrorists! Good! Thank you!’
Anger rose through the fear. ‘I had no idea the farm was an ANC base! And Miss Gandhi didn’t even know of the farm’s existence – she thought I was writing the story at Drum!’
‘I see.’ The colonel nodded. ‘So how did you come to write it on the farm?’
Oh Jesus. ‘I decided not to write it at Drum in case Drum got raided. The same applied to my apartment. Then I met a guy who rented a cottage outside town but hardly lived there. He offered it to me. I grabbed it. Writers do that, you know – we need to get away to work.’
‘Of course,’ the colonel said, and the other detective snickered. ‘Artists are like that. So?’
‘So this guy said I could use his empty cottage whenever I liked. He took me out there. And, it was ideal.’
‘How kind of him!’ the colonel beamed. ‘And so you rented it?’
‘No. Well, I gave him a case of wine. It was just a favour.’
‘I understand,’ the colonel nodded earnestly. ‘And the Olivetti typewriter?’
‘It was already there.’
‘Ah … So it was absolutely ideal, hey? An’ tell me – what’s this kind guy’s name?’
Mahoney had managed to think this far ahead. ‘Mac’
‘Mac what?’
‘Not sure. I just knew him as Mac, like most MacGregors or Mackintoshes. I did know, but I’ve forgotten.’
